The present invention relates to military cargo handling. More particularly, the present invention relates to a transport vehicle, the transport vehicle being deployable with a relatively small military unit and having versatile cargo handling capabilities to support the military unit.
There is a need for highly mobile combat units. The units should include a fleet of vehicles where each of the individual combat vehicles, the crews to man such vehicles, and sufficient fuel and ammunition should be transportable on a single transport aircraft. Specifically, the aircraft to provide the transportation is the C-130 type aircraft. Further, there is a need for the containerization/palletizing of some mission equipment that is currently mounted on trailers or is permanently mounted on a dedicated truck chassis, such as radars, generator sets, command centers, communications sets, and maintenance vans. Such containerization/palletizing would reduce the number of vehicles need to be deployed with a given military unit, making the transport requirements for getting the unit in the field and ready to operate much simpler, more quickly and less costly.
Further, there is a need is for providing enhanced organic cargo handling capability to military units. This includes the ability to load and unload palletized and other outsized cargo directly. Presently a military unit desiring to load and unload palletized and other outsized cargo would normally require the use of a forklift or other material handling equipment to effect such loading and unloading.
Additionally, there is a need for a recovery vehicle capable of allowing the unit to recover a disabled vehicle such as a High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV) (commonly referred to as a xe2x80x9cHumveexe2x80x9d) without the use of a specialized recovery vehicle (wrecker) and/or without having to tow bars/cables to tow a disabled vehicle. Frequently, such specialized recovery vehicles are in short supply and are typically deployed a relative great distance from the site of the disabled vehicle, thereby greatly hampering the recovery of the disabled vehicle. There is further a need to maximize the currently existing equipment content of such a system in order to maintain low cost and to provide a low technical and schedule risk approach that will quickly provide enhanced organic cargo handling capability.
The enhanced organic cargo handling capability system of the present invention substantially meets the aforementioned needs. In a preferred embodiment, the system may utilize an existing vehicle, such as the FMTV M1086A1 long wheelbase chassis truck that is currently in production. By using an existing vehicle, overall cost of the system is greatly reduced, the technical risk of the system is minimized and a schedule for making the system available to users is also greatly minimized. In order to form the improved system of the present invention, the vehicle undergoes certain modifications as noted below.
The major modification to the vehicle is the installation of the tilt bed, forming the rear portion of the vehicle bed. A stationary bed is preferably disposed forward of the tilt bed. The modified vehicle is used to pick up, transport and readily discharge a wide variety of cargo for enhanced tactical mobility.
This improvement to the present invention is an organic cargo handling system, including a tactical vehicle, a bed disposable on the vehicle, the bed including a tiltable bed portion, the tiltable bed portion including a quick hitch. The tiltable bed portion quick hitch is translatably disposed on a track, the track being operably coupled to the tiltable bed portion, quick hitch being powerable in a first direction along the track and being powerable in a second opposed direction along the track. A cargo handling apparatus is couplable to the quick hitch for selective engagement with an article to be transported on the tactical vehicle to advance said article up the tiltable bed portion for loading thereon and to urge the article down the tiltable bed portion for offloading thereof. The present invention is further a vehicle bed and a method of deploying material in the field.